1. VII. 1918

Dear Comrade Ioffe!

I am angry with you, to tell the truth, to the extreme. There are few people, everyone is worked to exhaustion, and you arrange such a thing: you write a great deal of business matters in a personal letter to me (the last one, in pencil) and you insert a series of personal thrusts, outbursts, barbs and the like against Chicherin ("not a real" m-r* and so forth). But to Chicherin you write: "perspectives in a letter to Lenin."

This is simply the devil knows what!

Of course, Chicherin asks me for the letter, I cannot show it, unwilling to be an instrument of intrigue. The result is damage to the work and damage to relations.

Chicherin is a magnificent worker, most conscientious, intelligent, knowledgeable. Such people must be valued. That his weakness is a lack of "command ability," this is no great matter. There are plenty of people in the world with the opposite weakness!

It is possible to work with Chicherin, and work proceeds easily, but one can spoil the work even with him.

You are finding fault with him, but the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs has the right to lodge complaints against you as well, because you do not reckon with it, and without the knowledge and permission of the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, of course, ambassadors have no right to take decisive steps.

I hope you will take all measures to eliminate these Mißstände.**

That Krasin has been "moved," this is very good. Press Shklovsky with all your might: he is lazy; demand reports and reports, threaten.

Yours, Lenin

* Apparently: minister. Ed.

** - shortcomings. Ed.

Sent to Berlin

First published in 1959

in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI

Printed from the manuscript